Vos Follows Trump’s Lead By Pushing Completely Baseless Claims of Voter Fraud, Ballot Dumping

Vos assaults Wisconsin’s election integrity by ordering investigation into baseless fraud claims.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is following the lead of President Donald Trump, launching an assault on the integrity of Wisconsin’s election results by ordering an investigation into baseless and unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.

In a statement Friday afternoon, Vos said he is directing the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections and its chair, Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) “to use its investigatory powers under Wisconsin [state statute] 13.31 to immediately review how the election was administered.”

As disinformation about the state’s election spread on social media, Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, told reporters Thursday there have been no reports whatsoever of any “irregularities.”

“I think that it’s insulting to our local election officials to say that yesterday’s election was anything but an incredible success,” an exasperated Wolfe said Thursday. “That was the result of years of preparation and meticulously carefully following the law.”

Still, Vos—offering no evidence and ignoring the fact that no issues have been officially reported—cast doubts on the legitimacy of the election.

“With concerns surfacing about mail-In ballot dumps and voter fraud, Wisconsin citizens deserve to know their vote counted,” Vos said. “There should be no question as to whether the vote was fair and legitimate, and there must be absolute certainty that the impending recount finds any and all irregularities.”

Vos said he wants Tusler’s committee to pay extra attention to Milwaukee, claiming there was “inefficiency” at the city’s central count facility, which processed absentee ballots. The central count process was livestreamed and observed by dozens of people in-person. 

“Every step of the elections process is publicly observable,” Wolfe said. 

Milwaukee’s absentee results were reported early Wednesday morning, giving Biden a lead in the state. There was no “ballot dump”; it was simply a result of ballots being counted.

“We are not finding ballots,” Julietta Henry, director of elections for Milwaukee County, told PolitiFact. “Ballots are being counted.”

Vos’ request for an investigation follows three days of Trump claiming “illegal ballots” are being counted and filing numerous lawsuits in the wake of Tuesday’s presidential election. On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign said it would request a recount in Wisconsin. Trump lost Wisconsin to Biden by roughly 20,500 votes. 

A story posted on a conservative website Wednesday appears to be one of the original sources of the “ballot dump” conspiracy. That article falsely claimed 100,000 ballots for Biden “appeared overnight” in Milwaukee.

Trump followed the same narrative when he tweeted about 9 a.m. that his lead in key states “started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted.”

Now Vos is picking up the narrative. 

What both Repubican men fail to acknowledge is that election totals change when the polls close and absentee ballots begin to be counted. 

Meanwhile, the Republican Party of Wisconsin and Trump’s campaign on Thursday called on volunteers to urge the president’s supporters in Pennsylvania to illegally cast ballots after Election Day.